"No, now do you want
us to knock you out or are you going to be part of our team, we need
a seventh?"

"Will it hurt?"

"If we knock you out
or if you become the seventh?"

"Either...?"
"Either,"
replied Ruhtra.

"I'll go with the
seventh, seeing as I'm a seventh son."

"So seven of seven
then, that can be your Borg designation."

"Is that a Swedish
name?"

"And what do you
know about that Oggie, you are a cloned goblin, a hundred years in
the reader's

past and on an alien
planet."

"What, aren't I
allowed to break the forth wall or what."

"Not yet son, not
yet. I'll tell you when you can." At that he turned curtly
around and motioned for those rescued and initiated into the TEABAG
goblins to follow him down the rabbit hole, (so Christened by me
because it sounded like a good name for the fally down fally up tube
thingy.)

CHAPTER THREE

As they hit the ground
(from the teleportation left thingy) Ruhtra looked ahead. He saw the
guardian goblin near the door and sucked some air in through his
teeth (now if he had sucked some air in with his teeth that would be
weird, or maybe not so much - for a shapechanger.)

Smetherwick spotted this
and wondered, "Have you got your full powers back yet?"

Ruhtra squinged a bit and
grew full size, "Yes!" then realised, "I can skin
him."

"What!"
exclaimed Shill because he misunderstood Ruhtra's intent even though
he knew the comment was about him.)

"Have you not read
Ground Hog War?" the shapechanger asked Shill.

"No, hardly anyone
has, no stars on Amazon. (com or .co.uk?) even, well, maybe one five
star review from the Author's biggest fan.

Shaking his head, Ruhtra
empathised with the Author then explained to Shill, "I can cover
you in a thin, disguising membrane, to make you look like a tall
goblin."

Hobgoblin?"

"Yes, are you up for
it?"

"I suppose so,"
shrugged Shill, "or this story will never get anywhere."

And so Ruhtra skinned
him.

This made them ready to
get through the guarded exit. As they walked towards it the guard
nodded at them in acknowledgement then pressed the big green button
that opened the entrance door. The portal flibbled open. Upon passing
through, Rhutra found it difficult to keep his shape, luckily he was
not spotted by the guard.

However, the desk
commander had a monitor in his office but didn't quite understand
what had happened. He thought his screen had gone on the blink and
banged it hard with his fist. The monitor wobbled and fell off. He
made a cursing sound and then scattered towards the door to look out
at the exit.

Ruhtra had just about
settled down.

The desk commander saw
nothing wrong but still felt uneasy, "What's wrong?" But he
didn't answer himself, after all he was a strange looking creature in
a made-up sci fi/fantasy, YA type of book, why should he.
Nevertheless (but definitely not neverthemore) he decided to act. "To
be or not to be..." he started, but as we know, I didn't mean
that kind of acting.

Like a crab on a hot tin
roof he scattered down the passageway and got there just as the
portal had closed. "You fool!" he screamed at the guard.

"What do you mean
Desk Commander?"

"I had an uneasy
feeling about that party of goblins that has just left."